Thomas C. Field, Jr.'s "From Development to Dictatorship," the movie

Like many tales from Bolivia, From Development to Dictatorship lends itself to the big screen. Recent cinematic renditions of Bolivian history include Steven Soderbergh’s epic Che: Part Two: Guerrilla, the Spanish drama Even the Rain, and Rachel Boyton’s brilliant documentary Our Brand Is Crisis, which is soon to be readapted by George Clooney. That the latter won the Independent Spirit “Truer Than Fiction” Award owes as much to Bolivia’s fairy-tale qualities as to Boyton’s exceptional artistic skill.

As an homage to Bolivia’s historical surrealism, my film opens with an appearance by the founder of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, played by Johnny Depp. Swigging bourbon whiskey with US Embassy officers as armed militias roamed the streets, Thompson (Depp) characterizes Bolivia as “A Never-Never Land High Above the Sea…a land of excesses, exaggerations, quirks, contradictions, and every manner of oddity and abuse.”

In order to fully capture the “manic atmosphere” Thompson (Depp) found in revolutionary Bolivia, the film should be directed by Robert...[read on]